


Old, not slow

by AngelynMoon



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Immortality, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:48:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23872675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelynMoon/pseuds/AngelynMoon
Summary: Witcher die when they get old and slow, Geralt gets old but doesn't slow.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 6
Kudos: 104





	Old, not slow

**Author's Note:**

> So in the story a few centuries go by and linguistical drift happens but Geralt doesn't bother to learn to speak the new language therefore his launguage is marked by asterisks (*) whereas the new language is not marked by anything, but he can understand the new language. 
> 
> "* This is Geralt speaking*"  
> "This is not the language Geralt speaks."

Eventually he starts forgetting the names of towns, they have changed more times than he remembers now, it's easier not to bother trying to recall what the town or city is called this century.

Instead he starts referring to them by the song his once bard composed at the town or nearby.

It is only Yennefer who understands him when he says where he was, she's taken to being with him when he comes to check in with the other Witchers or to help train more, most do not know know how to understand his words.

The language has changed several times as well but Geralt does not care about that either, he knows enough to still get his point across and he has Yennefer for everything else.

She is the only one he still has conversations with, no one else has bothered trying and Geralt is glad for that.

He misses the last person who had sparked a onesided conversation, he often asks Yennefer to play his memories for him so he doesn't for get his voice.

He sings the songs the man created for him, he sings them as he walks, sometimes he'll teach the words to children he passes by and listen to them sing the songs in childish voices like a child surprise once did.

They do not know what the words mean, to them and almost anyone else they are just nonsense words, they mean nothing to the strangers that Geralt gifts them to.

But Geralt refuses to forget them.

Some days, Geralt's worse days, Yennefer will softly sing for him.

She'll sing the songs she had once said only drunks could enjoy and the voice of their singer. She'll lean her head on Geralt's slumped shoulders and sing the song that gave him the name he still carries, the only one he yet answers to.

Geralt doesn't cry when she does, instead he'll gaze into the distance where the ocean meets the sand and hear a different voice harmonizing with a child's in time with the distant, crashing waves.

Yennefer is the one that knows what he was once called, what his real name is, after....after she had called him such only once because he had snarled at her so angrily that she had, for the first time ever, been afraid of him.

Instead he had taken his bard and the name he had whispered with his final breath and had buried them both in a field of dandelion blooms beneath a flowering tree next to a lake.

It was the closest Geralt could get to taking the bard to the ocean.

He didn't recall how long he'd remained there with the newly turned earth sliding through his fingers as his tears made it mud but eventually he had let his surprise and Yennefer lead him away.

They had still had work to do, the could not halt because they lost one of their own.

But when all was done Geralt had returned, again and again.

He'd bring trinkets and gifts, things that the bard had once enjoyed in life but Geralt carried the lute with him still, he knew how much the bard had loved the instrument and could not bare the thought of it buried in the ground to rot away.

He knew it was the right thing.

But Geralt did not cry again in the field of dandelions, Geralt had not cried since he had buried his bard, not even when his child surprise was finally buried herself after a long life filled with love, laughter and dozens of her own children and grandchildren.

Geralt wandered through a town, where once long ago, long before a silly songbird had begun tweeting in his ear, he'd killed a girl born under a black sun, he could still recall the weight of her in his arms and the name she had helped him earn.

He had thanked her once for that, long ago, long after his bard had perished because he knew that without the name the townsfolk had given him he'd not have gained his songbird.

He still wondered some days what would have changed if she'd lived, he knew that his bard would have liked her.

He passed through the streets quietly, ignoring the whispers that reached his ears and the murmuring of his moniker, he had supplies to refill and monsters to kill nearby.

He stilled as the strumming of a lute reached his ears, the noise would not have bothered him, no, he'd long since ceased to turn his head towards the sounds of lute strings being played by gentle fingers, no, it was the tune that halted him in the center of the street.

Someone bumped in to his back and oofed a little as they fell to the ground.

Geralt turned around slowly and stared down at the tune's player.

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't expect you to stop so suddenly." The brown haired man said quickly as he picked himself up, checking his lute to make sure it was undamaged.

"*Where did you hear that tune?*" Geralt asked.

"I'm sorry, I don't...," The man shook his head, "*Can you repeat that a little slower?*" The man asked carefully, pausing between the words like he had to think on them first and he probably did.

Geralt had forgotten that he spoke what was now considered an ancient language, if Yennefer was to be believed it could almost be considered a dead language even.

"*The tune, where did you hear it?*" Geralt growled out as he grabbed the man's shirt, dublets had gone out of style years ago but Geralt still wore the one that his bard had once bought him, spelled to last for an eternity by Yennefer.

"*It's always been stuck in my head, it's why I learned to play.*" The man held up the lute.

"Hmm." Geralt said as he stared at the other man, forcing himself to turn away.

"*Wait!*" The man called as he chased after him, falling into step beside him, "*I'm Dandelion.*"

Geralt turned to stare at the hand the man held out.

Geralt took the man's hand and wondered what the odds were that he'd meet a man named after the flowers he'd buried his bard beneath in the town he'd earned a name he'd hated, that his bard had nearly banished from memory with songs of his deeds and battles.

'Those linked by Destiny will always find each other.' Geralt heard his bard's laughing voice say before he launched in to another verse of 'Toss a Coin to your Witcher'.

Geralt found himself smiling as he stared into the man's bright blue eyes.

"*Geralt of Rivia.*" He said softly.

"*Well, Geralt of Rivia, you smell of death and destiny, heroics and heart break, do you mind if I come along with you, it would give me tales to write songs about.*" The man said as he bounced around Geralt as the Witcher began to walk again.

Geralt was taken back to a long ago memory of a bard telling him much the same and he could not help the slight nod he gave.

"*It's onion.*" Geralt said as he glanced over at the young man.

"*It's oni-*" The man started and then burst into laughter, "*Of course.*"

Geralt continued but paused each time the other stopped, glanced back or over each time he moved beyond his sight.

Destiny had given him a second chance and Geralt would be a fool to waste it.

\--  
A/n: would you believe that I didn't intend for Jaskier to be reborn? Because I really didn't.

I'm going to say that in regards to this fic that the feelings were there before Jaskier died but they never confessed until it was too late and Jaskier was dying, Geralt confessing because he wanted Jaskier to die knowing Geralt loved him.

Jaskier's last words were "I love you too, Geralt of Rivia, my White Wolf, my Geralt."

And Dandelion has always had these silly tunes and words he'd thought were made up in his head and dreams and a wolf with fur the color of fresh fallen snow leading him to places he'd never been.

He discovered that the words he dreamed were actually an ancient language that he then set out to learn, which is why he can understand Geralt it just takes him a bit to translate it so he can understand and speak back. He gets more fluent the longer they spend together and Geralt has a new translator.

Yennefer, when she discovers him, knows that his soul is Jaskier's and she greets him with a hug that confuses Dandelion but he feels like he knows this woman, just as he felt he knew Geralt and he can't helo hugging back.

Eventually he remembers and he and Geralt get the chance to actually do something with their feelings and they live happily ever after killing monsters and training Witchers and writing songs.

Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
